INTRODUCTION THREAD: People affected by Hep B

Just diagnosed or new to the community
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Hi I’m Jared 23 from United States , I was diagnosed with chronic hep b in 2017. When I found out I was devastated, I was a college athlete and in great shape and knew nothing about hep b or where to even begin to start. After awhile I came to the realization that I was going to fight this no matter what , I started taking tenofovir and viral loads have came down to undetected. My Dr believes that I contracted the virus at birth and I am just now finding out 20 years later. It’s great to hear everyone else’s stories and I hope we can all fight this together. I have my first ultrasound in December so I’m hoping everything goes well , my numbers are normal ALT and AST. So I’m praying for the best

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226

Sir,
I saw you on YouTube showing that you are working on cure for hepatitis b. Is there any cure coming in future for hepatitis b. I also searched on google that shows thervacb which is going to start trails from August 2022.

Kindly share any details on cure coming in future.

Don’t worry :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:, I’m very strong person with strong mindset. I don’t feel bad if heard there is no cure coming in future. Because of enthusiasm I’m asking this question. I’m prepared to fight :muscle::facepunch::gun:.

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I am from India also and tested positive in February, here in India govt is taking alot of initiatives for hepatitis b and c treatments. You can try them for tests and consultation.

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Bro how can I contact you :pray::two_hearts:. Please message me personally. It will be more helpful for me. Please message.

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I just wanted to say “hi” and give a quick intro. I contracted HBV from my estranged husband. He contracted it while we were separated and didn’t know that he had. I, thankfully, cleared the virus but he didn’t. I was unable to cope with the emotional stress of it and ended the relationship. After 9 months of being apart, we recently reconciled and re-married. We are vigilantly working through it but still not without occasional stress from it. It’s nice to know there is a support group to help get through the stressful times. I’d love to hear success stories of other couples that are in our same situation.

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Dear @Jared_Kent ,

Welcome to HepBcommunity and thanks for sharing your story. It’s great to hear that the medication has worked so well with you. Did you experience any side-effects?
It’s also fantastic that you were able to find out about your Hep B early. I hope you are still able to stay as fit. Hep B shouldn’t have an impact on how we exercise and look after ourselves: I know we have some body-builders on the forum, I myself do boot-camp classes and some boxing sometimes (when we’re not in COVID19 lock-down).
Hope all goes well with your follow-up tests and keep us informed!

Dear @Helpme786,
Definitely there is a lot of research into hep B cures. The threads to check out are here:

Thanks for that helpful information, @Ankap. If you don’t mind, I will try to tag and mention you whenever we have users from India.

Dear @tmdiges, thanks for sharing your personal experiences. I am glad that you were able to clear the virus and that you have since reconciled with your husband. There are other experiences from others on this forum in the following threads:

Hope these help!

Cheers,
Thomas

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@ThomasTu the only side effects I’ve had if they are even side effects is a weird feeling under my right rib cage which usually comes if I eat outside of my ordinary diet like fried foods etc. other than that I have not had any side effects. I do a lot of cardio daily and it tends to make me feel better most days if I’ve broken a sweat.

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Great to hear, @Jared_Kent . Many people talk about possible side-effects (see here), but I think it’s also important to hear from those that don’t experience any, because in my experience the majority don’t.

Cheers,
TT

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Thank you very much.

My Dr stated now that I am clear of the virus I can no longer transmit it to someone else. I have 2 younger children and my wife at homewhich concerns me. They are getting the vaccine but it is a 6 month process.

I still have fears they could get it. I would love a second opinion.

Thanks

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Hi Perry,

If you HBV DNA is negative/undetectable, there is no risk of transmission.

Hope this helps,
Thomas

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Hi Thomas,

Yes. It does help, There was a lot of confusion with all my blood tests, lost tests, wrong tests and the simple fact I’m not in the high risk categories but still contracted hep B left me slightly skeptical. And its good to have things confirmed.

Thank you

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No problem, @Perry. You raise a good point about “high-risk” categories and the slow realisation in the scientific/medical community that many people fall outside of these definitions may have hep B. For your information, there is now a growing movement pushing for universal screening (i.e. everyone should know their hep b status).

TT

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I am way. 43 years old from China to US.I know I have hep B 20 years+, but do not really seriously concern about it. Until recently I do my physical check, and my doctor remind me.
Nice to join this community.

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Welcome to the community, @wayyan.

Hope you find it useful!

TT

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A post was split to a new topic: Hepatitis B and Hepatitis Delta

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Hello everyone, my name is Ismail from Nigeria, I discovered that I’m hep B positive in year 2020 after I noticed that I am having constant malaria, I used to donate blood before even I donated blood in year 2018 and I was okay then, the challenges I’m facing here is that the cost of getting to know your viral load and the likes here is too high and the great mistakes I made was that, I went for the test when I’m about to get marry, I’m hep b positive and my wife to be was negative and she got vaccinated but we didn’t wait for 6 months and I didn’t undergone any treatment before we wed and she’s now 4 months pregnant, I don’t know what to do next because I knew what I went through before I could convinced her to marry me then. Please I need your advice.
Thanks

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Hello everyone,
I’m glad that I was accepted into the community.
I have chronic hb infection which was diagnosed 12yrs ago. I started treatment 6yrs ago and have achieved viral suppression. HBV DNA load has been consistently found to be undetected a year after I started the treatment.
At the beginning my doctor said I would have to treat the infection with Tenofovir for 2years. However, I’m currently in the 6th year since I commenced the treatment and he didn’t ask me to stop.
Recently, while I’m in Poland, I ran out of medication. It took me about 7 weeks to resume treatment due to unavailability of 300mg of Tenofovir in Poland. Thus, I had to import the drug from my country.
Now, I do experience some strange changes within me - I immediately get bloated after meal especially when eaten on a table. I was afraid if that could be the consequence of abrupt stop of the treatment. The combination of this strange experience and anxiety prompted me to go for a liver function test and HB DNA quantification (in progress). The result indicated normal levels of ALT, AST, Bilirubin and GGTP.
May I please appeal to our experts to respond to the following questions?

  1. Is there a medical guidelines for stopping treatment?
  2. Does body produce an antibody that fights the virus while treatment is on going?
  3. Does treatment prevent the occurrence of liver cancer?
    4)when is it projected to develop a cure for chronic HB infection?
  4. What is the side effects of Tenofovir?

Thank you

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Dear @Olawale96,

Thanks for sharing your story with us and your difficult situation. The major risks as I see it are 1) your wife developing a chronic hep B; 2) the baby being exposed to Hep B. If 1) has not happened, then you have no risk of 2).

So, I think that your wife should get regular monitoring with blood tests to see if she has developed HBV infection. Depending on these results, different medical interventions would be recommended. It is also important that the baby get Hep B vaccinations as soon as possible (within hours of birth).

Perhaps some @HealthExperts can provide additional information for Ismail’s situation?

Dear @ASYLAZ,

Great to hear that you had achieved viral suppression and sorry to hear about your stressful experiences. Stopping and starting medication can throw your body out of balance, so just allow some time to readjust and stay in touch with your medical professional about any health concerns.

To answer your questions:

  1. There are various guidelines from different organisations about when to stop treatment. Your doctor will know best how to interpret these. What is important though is that it can be dangerous: it should only be done after a discussion with your health professional and you need to be under careful monitoring afterwards to watch for any flares.

  2. Yes, just as if you are not treated, the body can produce antibodies to fight the virus while on treatment, but does not happen often. A chronic infection is difficult for your body to fight fully.

  3. Yes, treatment reduces the rate of cancer and liver disease over time.

  4. There are hundreds/thousands of scientists working on a cure at the moment. We have a lot of possibilities under trial and examination now. It’s hard to know exactly when a cure will be developed, because we don’t know which will work and which won’t. We just have to wait until we see the results from these studies. Some other discussions about it are here: New Drugs to cure Hep B?; Is Cure coming in future?; VIDEO: Community Information on the Progress Towards a Hepatitis B Cure; Upcoming HBV treatments

  5. For the majority of people, there are no side-effects for tenofovir. I myself have been on tenofovir for years and I have experienced no effects at all from it. There are some people who do report effects. There is a discussion here on them: Possible side-effects from antiviral therapy

Hope these help,
Thomas

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Hello! I’m Thea, 22, from Philippines. I was diagnosed with chronic hep B when I was 16 and I haven’t go to the doctor anymore. I would just like to ask if a person with hep B like me could still go to to work abroad specifically in Australia or Canada? I would be so glad if this will be noticed. Thank you and God Bless :slight_smile:

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Hi @theamwrllo,

Welcome to the forum. I can comment on the Australian side: recent changes to the health cost threshold for visas means that your Hep B should not stop you from working here.

Hope this helps,
Thomas

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